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Article in it’s entirety from Tri-Valley Times on 3/7/2013

PLEASANTON — Robbie Brumm has new found empathy for the disabled after spending a day rolling around school in a wheelchair.

“It was a little more work than I expected,” the 14-year-old said. “You have a different perspective in a wheelchair. Everyone else is able to walk around, but you’re not. Toward the end of the day, I wanted to walk because it was so slow getting around.”

Robbie Brumm, 14, gets one of the wheels of his wheelchair stuck while trying to get around campus at Hart Middle School in Pleasanton on Feb. 27, 2013. Students were given the opportunity to try out some wheelchairs on campus as part of a district wide fundraiser for the Rotary Club and the Wheelchair Foundation. (Dan Honda/Tri-Valley Times Staff)

Brumm was among 42 Hart Middle School students who spent at least half a school day using a wheelchair to get a feel for how disabled people live.

“It lets students experience life in a different way,” leadership teacher Stacy Webb said. “They’ll learn that it’s not easy getting around. It’s good to have the experience of feeling different and the difficulty of getting around.”

Hart students took part in the three-day wheelchair exercise as part of the school district’s campaign to raise money for the Danville-based Wheelchair Foundation. The nonprofit group raises funds to provide wheelchairs for disadvantaged people around the world.

“The district goal is to raise $42,000,” Webb said. “That would buy a crate of wheelchairs or 280 wheelchairs. We’re going to send them all to Guatemala.”

When the foundation offered to loan wheelchairs for students to use, Webb jumped at the chance.

“It will raise awareness,” she said. “Any time we don’t understand something, we tend to joke about it or make fun of it. Hopefully, it will help students understand the situation a little more and be more compassionate about what people in wheelchairs go through every day.”

Eighth-grader Lekha Kesavan signed up to ride in a wheelchair all day to experience life on wheels.

Lekha Kesavan, 13, makes her way through a door in a wheelchair at Hart Middle School in Pleasanton on Feb. 27, 2013. Students got to try out some wheelchairs on campus as part of a districtwide fundraiser for the Rotary Club and the Wheelchair Foundation. (Dan Honda/ Tri-Valley Staff)

“I wanted to know what people in wheelchairs have to deal with every day,” the 13-year-old said. “I was surprised at how dependent I was, especially in the tight aisles in the classroom. It was really hard to push myself. I wasn’t expecting it to be that much trouble. I realized how tough it was to roll myself and to turn.”

“After a while, my arms got sore,” eighth-grader Elena Angst added. “By the end of the day, I figured out ways to maneuver better. It was a good experience.”

The students admitted they often relied on the kindness of classmates for a friendly push and help getting around campus.

“Now that I know what they have to go through, I understand more,” Kesavan said. “I learned how much trouble it is for the disabled to move every day.”

This article taken in it’s entirety and written by Jody Morgan appeared in both the Danville Today News as well as the Alamo Today. 
 

The Wheelchair Foundation has delivered nearly 920,000 wheelchairs in over 150 countries since its inception in 2000. As founder Kenneth Behring’s original goal of giving one million wheelchairs to disabled individuals around the world nears fulfillment, global need continues to grow. An estimated 100 million people unable to afford a wheelchair are waiting in hidden corners of the earth for the chance to experience the empowerment of mobility.

Josh Routh connects with a nonagenarian in Tlaquepaque, Mexico, one of many wheelchair recipients from 4-96 years of age hea has met in Latin America. Photo courtesy of Don Routh

Wheelchairs were not among the donation Behring was packing in his private plane in 1999 when LSD Charities (the humanitarian outreach branch of the Latter Day Saints) asked him to drop off their aid packages en route to his African destination  He readily agreed. Included in that cargo were six wheelchairs bound for a hospital in Romania. “Little did I know” he writes, “that those six wheelchairs would change the direction of my life.”

Behring, a successful Danville developer, defines the joy generated by setting a wheelchair recipient’s dreams in motion as the acheivement of purpose. In his 2004 autobiography Road to Purpose, he recount, “I lifted a small Vietnamese girl from the ground and placed her in a wheelchair. In that instant, she found hope…Her face opened into a smile, her eyes as bright as the noontime sky. And I knew for all she had changed in that moment, I had changed even more.”

Initially, Behring explored recycling used wheelchairs. The process proved the reverse of cost-effective. Packaging for shipment added to the expense of parts and labor for repairs. Then Behring asked manufacturers to design a durable wheelchair priced according to the high volume of orders he anticipated. One product seemed perfect, but it required two hours to piece together when uncrated. Today’s model comes in five sizes, ordered with regular or all-terrain tires, and can be assembled in 15 minutes. Averaging shipping costs to all destinations, the Foundation can deliver each wheelchair for just $150.  In Bolivia a comparable product costs $1,700.  In many countries, the price of a wheelchair exceeds an average laborer’s annual income.

The Wheelchair Foundation runs an administratively lean operation, funneling virtually every dollar into providing wheelchairs. Volunteers and service organizations across America do much of the fundraising. Unanimously declaring the positive return on their investment inestimable donors traveling on distribution trips pay their own expenses.  On the receiving end, similar groups arrange local logistics including identification of recipients and appropriate configuration of the wheelchairs they require. They also fund and coordinate transportation to remote locations where wheelchairs are most needed.  Rotary International, with clubs in over 200 countries, is frequently involved in all aspect of the process.

Since Bill Wheeler, founder of Blacktie Transportation, invited them on their first journey, Josh Routh and his father Don have made 20 distribution trips to 11 countries. In the remote town Juigalpa, Nicaragua, they met a 26 year-old woman who had been waiting eight years to acquire the wheelchair she needed to utilize the scholarship to Managua University she earned as a high school honors graduate.  Finally enabled to pursue her studies, she chose psychology so she could hep families coping with disabilities   In poorer places, when one family member is disabled, another often has to stay home from school or work to act as a caregiver.

Josh tears up as he describes a recipient brought to a wheelchair distribution in a wheelbarrow and another crawling through the dust to get there. Born with cerebral palsy, Josh has never walked.  Although doctors predicted he would remain a quadriplegic, never uttering an intelligible word, the 33-year old San Ramon resident drives his own car and lives independently. A cashier at Nob Hill, Josh dedicates much of his time to aiding others.

Hayward students connected with peers in El Salvador by sending wheelchairs and t-shirts.

“When you give someone the gift of mobility, you are giving them freedom and dignity…and when someone has freedom and dignity then they have hope for the future,” explains Don Routh.  Now retired, Don spreads awareness of the worldwide need for the means of mobility and the elation engendered by improving the life of each wheelchair recipient.  One of his initiatives at a Hayward elementary school gave low-income Latino students the opportunity to celebrate joy in their joint accomplishment: raising enough money to send six wheelchairs to less fortunate peers in El Salvador.

Don Routh plans to introduce the program the “Three Amigos” (Don, Josh and Bill) are currently piloting with the Pleasanton Unified School District to additional area school districts this spring. They provide live and video presentations, posters, collection containers, and fundraising ideas. Wheeler offers Blacktie’s community bus free for one field trip per school to either the Blackhawk Museum/Wheelchair Foundation exhibits or a wheelchair sport event.  Ten wheelchairs are available for schools to borrow in rotation for students to test drive or use in fundraising races or sport competitions. For information, email

do******@co*****.net











Eva Carleton, Regional Director of Operations of Latin America and the Caribbean, travels on 3-4 distribution trips a year while coordinating the delivery of 40-50 projects. Every working day she helps provide someone with what sh considers a basic human right: a wheelchair.  “Without a wheelchair,” Carleton notes, “you have to ask for everything you need.”  Eva’s mother’s quality of life improved dramatically once she accepted how enabling the device could be. She no longer has to ring for a nurse every time she wants a simple object like a tissue.

In a Colombian community several hours from Bogota, Carleton met a woman who had been unable to work for five years due to a spinal injury.  Thanks to her Foundation wheelchair, she was back at her job.  Minutes later, Eva encountered another wheelchair recipient happily earning money keeping parked cars safe.

“It’s always a joy to give someone a wheelchair and it is an even greater joy to personally watch and hear how that wheelchair improved their life,” explains David Behring, President of the Wheelchair Foundation.  David met Tran Nghia in 2003.  Born with a neurological disorder, the Vietnamese high school student depended on family and friends to carry her everywhere.  She needed a wheelchair to attend university to study English and become a doctor.  The following year David visited her family and they kept in touch.  In November 2012 they met again in Hanoi.  “Nghia unfortunately could not become a doctor due to her disability but she did learn English and translates documents for a Vietnamese company.  … Her smile was as radiant as I remembered it back in 2003.”

A wheelchair recipient with Kenneth Behring (right). Photo courtesy of the Wheelchair Foundation

Kenneth Behring make a point of shaking the hand of every wheelchair recipient.  “All we ask in return is a smile.”  Partnering with non-governmental agencies permits the Wheelchair Foundation to give the gift of mobility with no strings attached.  Creating global friendship and promoting the joy of giving are additional aspects of this non-profit organization’s mission “to deliver a wheelchair to every child, teen, and adult in the world who needs one, but cannot afford one.”

The Wheelchair Foundation’s annual Charity Ball at the Blackhawk Museum February 23rd is open to the public as are all Foundation fundraisers.  Jeff Behring, Director of Special Benefits, offers a Wine for Wheels private party plan getting rave reviews nationwide as a means for finding personal purpose while sharing fun with friends.  To register for the Charity Ball, plan a Wine for Wheels event, learn more about Foundation activities or to make a donation, visit www.wheelchairfoundation.org. Road to Purpose is available at the Danville Library.

Eight-year-old Salamisa Vunilagi, Junior couldn’t stop smiling. He’s dreamed of one thing every day for as long as he can remember, and today, his dream finally came true.

Junior’s new wheelchair.

When Junior was an infant, he was diagnosed with meningitis, and the disease soon crippled him. Junior’s parents, Salamisa, Sr. and Vani Mainukulau, did everything they could, even trekking from their rural home to the nearest city of Labasa, in hopes of finding a cure for his paralyzed condition. They were broken-hearted to learn that nothing could be done. As each birthday passed, Junior remained completely dependent on his mother and father – while dreaming each day of independence. No longer a dream, Junior received a gift that changed the lives of the entire family – a new wheelchair.

This special delivery was made possible by the Wheelchair Foundation, along with the Rotary Club of Labasa, as part of the Vodafone “World of Difference” initiative undertaken by the ACATA Trust Fiji to provide assistance to the physically challenged. A total of 110 wheelchairs were presented to the Red Cross, the Spinal Injury Association, and other distribution partners over the course of 10 days, and one man in particular played a significant role in the success of this effort.

This will give them mobility to move around and be productive and they do not have to depend on others. My message to them is to use the wheelchairs wisely.
-Chetan Singh Heyer

Chetan (Chet) Singh Heyer is a native of Fiji, and his heart reaches out to the people living with disabilities in his homeland. During his visit to the country in 2010, Chet was alarmed by the overwhelming number of citizens in need of wheelchairs. He returned to the United States determined to make a difference in the lives of his island people, and became Founder and President of the fundraising project Fiji Wheelchairs.

Chet and his family aspired to bring the gift of mobility to their fellow Fijians, and with the help of the Wheelchair Foundation, the Singh Heyers were able to achieve their kind-hearted goal.

Bob Slayback, president of the Lodi Rotary Club, helps prepare wheelchairs for distribution in Mazatlan.

Every year for the past 11 years, the Rotary Club of Foster City has been going to Mazatlan, Mexico to help the less fortunate. The original project was distributing wheelchairs to those without mobility and without the means to obtain it on their own. Since its inception, the project has grown to include building schools and playgrounds.

In October of this year, nearly 70 Rotarians and local Interact Club students, who were led by Linda and Jon Grant, set off to continue the mission of helping those in need. With them was President of the Lodi Rotary Club, Bob Slayback, who accompanied the group to help plan future trips for his fellow club members. Dr. Grant combines contributions received from District Coordinators, such as those forwarded by Tom Harmon of District 5810, and then applies for matching grants from The Rotary Foundation.

Wheelchairs were delivered in person to recipients who were unable to leave their homes, and those who were able to drive or get rides into town received their wheelchair in front of hundreds of family, friends and Rotarians. In total, over 500 wheelchairs were given to individuals, young and old, who had never experienced mobility.

Rick Pietrykowski, of the Rockwall Breakfast Rotary Club, described his experience, saying, “As delightful as it was to see hundreds of smiling children’s faces, it tugged at our hearts to see the tears of many flavors on the faces of the wheelchair recipients: tears of joy mixed with tears of pain during the physical act of moving a torn body into the wheelchair, tears of gratitude intermixed with tears of regret for being in need of the gift, and tears of excitement for their new-found freedom, washing over the tears of being at a disadvantage in a disadvantaged land.”

The Gift of Mobility

By: Allison Meagher Paoli

Donald C. Kurth
March 09, 1944 - Nov. 17, 2009

We all have a story. Actually, we all have many stories; some are happy and some are not, some are of struggle and hardship, and some are inspirational stories of triumph. This narrative is a combination of each of these elements. It is my honor and privilege to tell the story of a man whose endeavor began before my days as a Rotarian, but whose legacy will continue on for those suffering with polio and other handicapping conditions around the globe. It is a story of true friendship that one man from the Lake Havasu City Rotary Club, AZ, took on in the name of a dear friend. It was Chuck Denney’s mission to make Don Kurth’s struggle and passing a victory and tribute for all who adored him; one man, even though deceased, has made a difference world-wide.

Don Kurth was born in March of 1944. At the age of 18 months, he was stricken with polio. Throughout the course of his life, Don needed an iron lung to help him breathe, braces for his legs allowing him to walk, crutches to lean on, and eventually, a wheelchair for freedom to move about. While many people would have allowed this disease to consume them, Don was not that type of man. He lived his life to the fullest. He was a loving and devoted husband to his wife Sandie, and a wonderful father to their three sons. Don was also an inspiration to his friends.

Everyday was an inconvenience for Don Kurth, but in the eyes of his peers, you would never know it. He was the Manager of the Reverse Mortgage Department of Wells Fargo Bank, and very good at his job; but what most of us would characterize as an hour or less “morning routine” typically took Don two and a half hours to accomplish. Every morning, Sandie would greet Don with a cup of coffee, and together they would work to prepare him for his day. On Mondays, Don went to the Lake Havasu City Rotary Club meetings where his friends would show up early, wait in the parking lot, and stay late to assist him with his wheelchair so he could attend the meetings; and they did so, happily! And although Don could have used a motorized wheelchair, it wasn’t what he wanted. His chair was simple, and gave him the freedom he needed with just the right amount of independence to meet each day.

On the morning of November 17, 2009, Sandie Kurth went to wake her husband, only to find that Don had passed away in his sleep.

Donald C. Kurth was a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International and a Rotary Foundation Benefactor. Kurth’s family requested that the Lake Havasu City Rotary Club preside over his memorial, and they did, with heavy hearts in memory of a friend and fellow Rotarian. Like all of us, there are people who touch our lives in ways that motivate us to commemorate them through acts of good will. For Chuck Denney, Don Kurth was that person.

Denney, a lifelong Rotarian, had been on two life-changing trips internationally with Rotary. In 2004, Denney went with a group to Cairo, Egypt where they actually placed drops of the polio vaccine on the tongues of infants on National Immunization Day. National Immunization Day allows Rotarians to enter countries for vaccination distribution where there is typically civil unrest. They are protected by local military while trying to help the country’s people. In 2005, Denney went to Mexico with Rotary International to distribute new wheelchairs to people in need. Having had these two incredible humanitarian experiences brought R.I.’s polio and wheelchair causes near and dear to his heart. Over the years, Denney recalled these experiences, and has said, “There is nothing in the world like the feeling you get from putting drops of vaccine on the tongue of a baby, or the joy of picking up a person who can’t stand or walk, and placing them into a brand new wheelchair. It is unlike anything I’ve ever felt.”

The sadness that Denney felt after Kurth’s passing gave him a new energy about the two causes that he personally thought were of high importance as a Rotarian. Whether a person was constrained to a wheelchair because of polio, or for some other crippling circumstance, Chuck Denney witnessed the value of the wheelchair through the eyes of Don, and became determined to remember him by raising money to buy and distribute wheelchairs, just like the one Kurth used.

Sandy Kurth, widow of Rotarian Don Kurth, gives Chuck Denney an extra push forward beside Lake Havasu City, Arizona's famed London Bridge.

Jeannie Morgan, District Governor of 5490, appointed Denney to become the “Wheelchair Chairperson” for a period of two years in 2009. Denney researched and found a company who could supply wheelchairs for roughly $125 per chair, give or take. It is the policy of the Rotary Foundation to fund matching grants, so Denney decided the best way to go about raising money for his project was to ask individual contributors to sponsor a wheelchair for about half the total cost.

In February of 2010, during a weekly meeting at the Lake Havasu City Rotary Club, Denney persuaded every member of the club to stand up and donate for wheelchairs. The unanimous reaction gave him the momentum to go to the other two Rotary Clubs in Lake Havasu City, AZ and ask for additional donations. The response to his request continued to be overwhelming; therefore, Denney took his pursuit throughout District 5490. During this time, Denney learned that Jon B. Grant, PDG, in Foster City, CA, was coordinating wheelchair money from his region. We all know the expression: when it rains, it pours… well, when Denney’s fundraising was initiated, the goal was to raise enough money to buy 280 wheelchairs, or one container, but with the help of Jon B. Grant, PDG, George Wheeler, PDG, “Chairman of the District Foundation Grant Program,” District Governor Jeanie Morgan, and Charlie Tegarden, PDG, what was once a “slight drizzle” turned into a “downpour” in wheelchair resources. Collectively, they were able to find wheelchair-designated funds from Rotary Clubs in California and Arizona. With the collaboration and effort of these five dedicated people, along with donation collections and funds previously allocated for wheelchairs, what was once the goal of raising enough money to buy 280 chairs for Mexico, turned into enough money to purchase 2800 wheelchairs that would be distributed all over the globe.

Denney is so grateful to the Lake Havasu City Rotary Club for stepping up to sponsor his endeavor on behalf of Don Kurth. That February day, when the club stood up unanimously, marked the beginning of an incredible journey that would bestow thousands of physically challenged people, along with their devoted caregivers (people like Sandie Kurth), with an increased quality of life.

The details and the passion in this story are far more powerful when told by Denney himself; his undertaking has been a gift of mobility for thousands! It started with a deep level of friendship between two people and the mutual admiration they shared. It transpired because of who Don Kurth was to his fellow Rotarians, and perhaps the most extraordinary part of the story is… that Denney and fellow District 5490 Rotarians were on their way to Puebla, Mexico to deliver the first container of wheelchairs, the week of November 17, 2010; exactly a year from the death of a beloved friend, to indeed, celebrate his life.

Photos courtesy Rotary District 5490.